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Easily the Best Streaming Software on Twitch – StreamLabs OBS

So you want to start streaming. You don’t know where to start. You have all of these questions so you start looking. Well, I’m here to help. I completely understand, this is actually pretty overwhelming. I know, because I went through the same process myself. The setup is not overly complicated but nowadays you are bombarded with options and things you need to get before you start your first stream. Let’s get started on your career as a streamer!

So, what’s the first thing you need to get first? You need a streaming program to broadcast whatever you’re streaming and there’s so many options! Look no further, I have a solution for you.

Note: This contains an affiliate link where if you click on my link I may or may not get something in return. I will always recommend something that I use and I hope that it will help you. More info over at my affiliate disclosure.

So what is Streamlabs OBS? It is a streaming software that has a lot of features in it. Of course some of these are essential: Stream Chat (you talk to your viewers), video preview, video editor, recent events (whoever decided to follow, donated and even subscribe!), stream labels, a chat bot (to help with channel moderation) and a dashboard all in one app. That’s right, you have everything you need in one window.

Not only that, StreamLabs is free! Since we are financially savvy gamers, we don’t want to spend too much trying to build our streaming career! If you check out StreamLab’s own web page, you can see some top Streamers on Twitch use it! This includes Ninja, summit1g and pokimane. This is a very trusted streaming platform and you would be very wise to use the software that the best are using.

Easily Customize Your Stream With a Single Click

What made it stand out from other streaming programs like XSplit and OBS is how easy it is to implement themes, widgets and other custom features into your stream from your window. You can easily change what an alert will show on your Alert Box Widget right from the dashboard! It even provides user-made content for your use right on the Themes page. Before you had to find all of these things from the world wide web and then create browser sources in your favorite streaming software in order to show it off.

A huge selection of free themes and install in one click!

Believe me, this was really frustrating when I first started a couple of years back on OBS. I also found out about XSplit and tried it out; I liked it but it was very cost prohibitive for me to justify using it. StreamLabs has made it so super easy for me that I never looked back. (I’m also inherently lazy, and I would prefer to spend my time getting good at what I want to do rather than spend time trying to make it perfect on all the wrong things.)

The More Technical Details That Give You the Edge

I’m still small, but this is where I can see who subbed, followed or donated recently.

StreamLabs features multiple windows like StreamLabels, Stream Chat, Dashboard/video editing in one window. Before you needed to have multiple windows open (most of these in costly memory hogs that are browsers!) which can eat up RAM and CPU which can cause performance issues while you’re gaming! Not only that, I hate having multiple windows at once while I’m streaming because I have to ALT-Tab cycle all of them to get to the window I want and do what I need to do. Having it in one window makes it super convenient! The layout is super simple to use and easy to access.

Another huge feature is allowing you to use your mobile device as a remote control on StreamLabs! You can easily change scenes with a push of a button on your phone.

StreamLabs boasts that you can still have awesome video quality while streaming by using x264 and Nvenc encoder settings. This was heavily inspired by how Netflix’s AI compresses video scene by scene. They truly have optimized x264 by using AI to compress video scenes. This is incredibly good for people who have weak CPU, low bitrates or both. I’m not really good at explaining this, so I’ll just redirect you to StreamLab’s post about it.

I could artificially have a sound gate for my microphone!

It even has noise gain and suppression! People don’t like it when they hear background noises when you stream and can be a huge turn off. This is an important feature that you want to have while you’re streaming! You don’t want to scare away potential viewers just because they can overhear your neighbor doing… stuff… just because you have thin walls!

For anyone who used OBS are fed up with the multitude of windows they would have to deal with in OBS and don’t mind missing out on some features that StreamLabs has missed out on, you can easily upload your setup into StreamLabs.

What Comes in Features comes in Inflexibility

If you’re an Old School Streamer looking to see why you should switch, well this is your moment to shine and spit on all of us StreamLabs users. A lot of these people swear by the functionality that StreamLabs OBS seem to lack, such as being able to precisely transform your overlays according to your Stream. Another feature that was missing until recently was Studio Mode, which allowed the streamer to edit and preview whatever changes they make live before pushing it onto the viewers. StreamLabs OBS is still missing a lot of features but is consistently improving and adding in more features. It will eventually overcome some tried and true competition.

OBS, despite how complicated it is for newer streamers, can be a lot more powerful and even more efficient on your machine due to how it is consistently built and improved on by the multitude of users using it. This is because of the nature of it being an open source program. StreamLabs OBS is also open sourced, but it isn’t currently up to par to what OBS can provide. If you think you can take the extra time to utilize OBS’s flexibility there are many guides out there for users who are willing to learn.

Who is StreamLabs For?

StreamLabs OBS is definitely for any newcomer to the scene of streaming. It boasts ease of use and putting together a lot of essentials for streamers who are fed up with the complications of having multiple windows at once to manage their stream. There are also statistics provided in your dashboard about who followed you, how much was donated to you, and a large application store to pick up any stream theme and widget themes in a single click! I highly recommend this product to anyone who is serious about streaming and many top streamers on Twitch agree that this is the most reliable and easily one of the best streaming software on Twitch!

Go download Streamlabs OBS if you’re serious about streaming. I can’t wait to see your channel grow! Good luck out there!

10 thoughts on “Easily the Best Streaming Software on Twitch – StreamLabs OBS”

This sounds very interesting. Only on the internet can you find great info like this. Im not going to lie, while I understand much of it there is quite a bit I dont understand.I am going to take a little time and click into some of your links and see if I can learn a lot more.Streaming has intrigued me nut now Im going to try and understand the inner workings.Once again thank you for a very good article.Dale

Hey thanks for reading. The internet’s a great place to start finding information. There’s a ton of video tutorials on StreamLabs itself to help you get started. If you stick around a bit I’ll be posting tutorials on settings and configurations that I think that are vital for any streamer.

This appears to be a genuinely comprehensive piece of software. Do you know what company is behind it, or is it independent? I’d be willing to take a flyer on a small startup if the software is really good, but it’s always helpful if there is someone, or some organization of substantial size backing it.

StreamLabs is an independent company. Its founder, Ali Moiz has been in the gaming industry for over 15 years now, founding Peanut Labs and is a head of a an ESports team. He’s been seen on E3 and Games Done Quick. I’ve provided in the article a few top streamers on Twitch who swear by the software and if you click on their website, there are way more users also on a variety of stream platforms (Twitch, Mixer, Youtube Gaming, Facebook, etc.) who also use the product.

I have been interested in streaming for some time but as you mention it has been a bit complicated for me because I do not have the technical background to carry it out. However, after reading your post, I am really excited about the possibilities that StreamLabs OBS offers. I still have some anxiety to get into that world, but it’s something I want to do, and I definitely think it’s worth a lot of time to learn and master it.

I had the same issue to when I first used OBS back in 2015. I wanted to join my friends in creating video and livestreaming on Twitch when it was still in its infancy but I couldn’t get my head wrapped in setting it up or had the time to. (I was still very much in school and school was my primary focus.) With StreamLABS OBS I was able to set up my Stream in less than an hour and get started!

At least StreamLabs is free, you don’t have anything to lose! The best way to dive deep into it! 🙂

So I dunno anything about StreamLabs OBS, but I have regular OBS (version 22.0.2 to be exact) and used it for Jet Set Radio + that one Sea of Thieves Beta stream I did a year ago. It certainly carried out what I wanted it to do. (The only true obstacle I faced was 100% my fault, aka having two or three unsynced layers of audio going because I had opened my stream page in multiple Chrome tabs to make sure I was successfully streaming and then forgot to close them.)

That said, while OBS may sport a lot of deeper function that I never got to, the interface is so classically-unvarnished that I already know I’d have a hard time working out the details of each variable (a problem I think I have with old-school open-source software in general). StreamLabs OBS appears to be way more accessible at least based on your images, so if I decide I wanna stream/record again I’ll be sure to switch.

Yeah, that was the biggest thing with OBS I found was that it was really bad for me to figure out how to use the interface and optimizing. For me it was spending too much time trying to get right so that my viewers won’t get turned off by me trying to make it work. I’d rather save time trying to set it up and get started in streaming.

I suppose OBS requires a lot of front-end time getting it right, but I’d rather get started right away.